Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile application management and more particularly to application uninstallation in a mobile computing environment.
Description of the Related Art
Traditional computing involves the selection and installation of one or more computer programs to fixed storage of a computing device and the utilization of those installed computer programs within the computing device. Prior to the advent of mobile computing, computer programs were distributed on portable media such as a diskette or optical storage medium, and copied onto fixed storage of a target computer through a media reader such as a disk drive. The Internet as a software distribution medium changed the manner in which computer programs are installed in so far as no longer are computer programs required to be distributed on portable media. However, the on-demand nature of application installation onto mobile devices by way of application “stores” truly have changed the way in which individuals consumer computer programs in the modern era.
In this regard, mobile computing differs from desktop computing in that applications utilized on the desktop tend to be full featured and therefore large in size. In contrast, in the mobile computing space, due to the limited resources of the mobile computing device, applications tend to be more compact in features, leaner in resource utilization, and therefore, smaller in footprint. As such, computer programs intended for use in the mobile computing environment are more readily installed due to the relatively low impact mobile applications impart upon a host mobile computing device. To with, most mobile applications today are discovered and acquired in publicly accessible online repositories from which desired applications are downloaded on impulse in real time. Thereafter, those applications remain present in the mobile computing device even though in many cases those applications may have been downloaded for a singular purpose—for a particular situation—and thereafter the use thereof is never required again. Such applications are referred to commonly as situational applications.
Despite the compact size of a single situational application, over time, the accumulation of a multiplicity of situational applications can take its tool upon the resources of the mobile computing device in which the applications are installed. Aside from the fixed storage space consumed by each of the situational applications, some situational applications consume other resources through the programmatic utilization of location based services of the mobile computing device, through the programmatic background updating of the situational application thereby resulting in the unwanted consumption of battery life of the mobile computing device, or the periodic posting of notifications to the end user through the mobile computing device. Thus, it is desirable to remove situational applications once the prospective use of the situational applications no longer is likely. However, the manual process in uninstalling different situational applications can be tedious. Further, for situational applications of high volatility in which the prospective utilization exists for a very short period of time, the need to perform manual uninstallation can be frequent compounding matters.